World Voices Festival
A celebration of international literature and the freedom to write.
4 Days. 40+ Events. 140+ Authors from 40+ Countries
The 2026 World Voices Festival brought together more than 140 writers from 40+ countries at events across New York and Los Angeles to celebrate literature’s enduring power to cross borders and challenge forces that divide us.
Wide ranging discussions covered topics like dark academia, threats to U.S. democracy, dystopian novels, climate change solutions, border literature, the art of translation, and more. The festival embodies our belief that poets, novelists, translators, and journalists, and literature writ broadly, reminds us of our shared humanity and is a bulwark against the rising tide of autocratic powers threatening democratic values.
Check out coverage from recent Festival panels
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On Home, Belonging, and Literature: Novelists Susan Choi, Tash Aw, and Madeleine Thien Close Out 2026 World Voices Festival
Authors at the 2026 World Voices Festival joined for a conversation about literature’s obligations to marginalized communities.
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Storytelling as a Foundation to Understand the Palestinian People
The 2026 PEN World Voices Festival hosted Narrating Palestine, an intimate conversation on reckoning with how Palestinian stories are told.
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‘Some Things Are More Beautiful in Fiction’: Three Writers on Crafting the City
At the 2026 World Voices Festival, three authors delved into the capacity for cities to function as sites of political commentary.
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4 Translators On the Value of Their Profession and What Comes Next
A panel of translators at the World Voices Festival consider the role of translators in a globalized world threatened by authoritarianism and AI.
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Three Writers Examine the Magic and Limits of the Archive
The 2026 PEN America World Voices Festival gathered three writers who drew heavily upon archival materials for their latest books.
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Yiyun Li and Édouard Louis On Writing About the Unimaginable
At the 2026 World Voices Festival, Yiyun Li and Édouard Louis discussed the ways they think about facts, failure, and friendship.
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Siri Hustvedt on Grief, Ghosts, and ‘Ordinary Madness’ After Paul Auster’s Death
In conversation with Katie Kitamura at the 2026 PEN World Voices Festival, Siri Hustvedt described Ghost Stories as a "resurrection."
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‘Anybody can fall into anything’: Four playwrights on ordinary people and atrocity
Bess Wohl, Boni B. Alvarez, Amanda Gronich, and Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk draw from stories of the Nazi era.
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World Voices Festival Opening Night: Attacks on Democracy
In a panel about the democratic crisis, Judith Butler, Phil Klay, Molly Jong-Fast, and Eddie Glaude describe the patterns the US is repeating.
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Why Yiyun Li Thinks You Should Attend the World Voices Festival
Yiyun Li discusses her first time attending the World Voices Festival 20 years ago and her one-sentence pitch on why you should attend.
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Propaganda, Isolation, Censorship, and Entertainment: What Overseas Press Know About the Authoritarian Playbook
Anna Nemzer, M. Gessen, and Yaqiu Wang discuss how media falls victim under authoritarianism, and what America should watch out for.
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Surviving the Impossible: Women Navigate Death and Grief in a Complex Healthcare System
Samina Ali and Ariel Gore discussed their memoirs, which chronicle the ways the medical system failed them.